Two ministries asked to solve problems bilaterally

KUWAIT CITY, Sept 4: Relations between Ministry of Public Works (MPW) and Ministry of Electricity and Water (MEW) currently seems to be in murky water due to delay in supplying electricity to several construction projects that MPW had executed in the recent years, and dispute over the mechanism of delivering electricity to the future projects, reports Al-Qabas daily.

The dispute between the two ministries, the headquarters of which are located within the same plot in South Surra area, ended up in the corridors of the Council of Ministers for arbitration, as reported by Minister of Public Works Dr Jinan Boushahri in a letter sent to the service committee of the Council of Ministers.

In her letter, Dr Boushahri said her ministry is facing obstacles that prevent it from accomplishing and operating its construction projects because its counterpart, Ministry of Electricity and Water, has failed to deliver electricity to these projects and other required tasks such as providing cables, digging, and supplying transformers.

She explained that MEW currently does not have a contractor to carry out this work. It recently requested MPW to execute the work through one of the contractors accredited by MEW and operates under its supervision, under the condition that MPW bears all costs for digging and supplying high voltage cables among other activities.

“Currently, Ministry of Public Works has an ongoing agreement to design various future projects. It needs several approvals from various bodies including Ministry of Electricity and Water, which demanded that all future projects should include works related to supplying it with electricity services from the electricity transformer stations. This include medium and low pressure circuit breakers as per the Ministry of Electricity and Water’s specification”, Dr Boushahri noted.

She requested the matter to be presented to the Council of Ministers because it entails that MPW should take up responsibility of another ministry, adding that such measures have huge negative impact on the duration of the project and causes delays, as well as result in financial impacts due to change in the completion dates of the project phases.

Dr Boushahri indicated that MPW is also made to handle the technical burden when it has to carry out work that is the responsibility of another ministry.

However, the Council of Ministers has referred the matter back to the ministries involved and recommended coordination between these two ministries in a manner that would ensure electricity is delivered to all ongoing and future projects for the beneficiary bodies, and the public funds is preserved. This means the solution must be sought internally by the two ministries and not from outside.